


Wait

by ginnyred



Category: SKAM (Italy)
Genre: Apologies, F/M, Ice Cream, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 10:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18849433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginnyred/pseuds/ginnyred
Summary: Gio has not seen her.He has given up his seat and he's now half leaning against the wall, a small box in his hands, staring distractedly up at the electronic board, which is now showing the number 79 in bright yellow digits.I wonder if he'd call to me. Or if he'd pretend to not have seen me.





	Wait

Eva huffs, annoyed before even entering the building, when she sees through the glass walls that the post office is full to the brim. She'd go home and tell her mum she'll mail everything tomorrow, but she has already done that yesterday. And the day before.

And the day before that one.

She rolls her eyes and forces herself to go through with this – thirty minutes of queuing are thirty minutes less of homework after all – so she pushes the door open and gets in. The ticket dispenser is thankfully close to the entrance, but she still has to push past a couple of burly gym-type guys and a group of chattering mums to get to it.

_Number 105._

Eva looks up: only two desks are open and they're currently calling number 77.

It's going to be a long wait.

She sighs, not even bothering to check if the chairs are free because they never are, and leans defeatedly against a column, resting her head against the cold stone, closing her eyes, ready to wait until the end of time, or something equally dramatic.

 _That's_ when she hears him.

_“Do you want to sit down, ma'am?”_

_“Oh. Oh, yes, thank you. What a lovely boy you are. Thank you.”_

_“No problem.”_

Eva opens her eyes suddenly and leans forward to look to her left, to the row of chairs she didn't bother checking before. And, yeah.

It's Gio.

Offering his seat to an old lady, how typical.

Her first impulse is to call to him, but she reins that in. Where she stands now, she's almost fully hidden from view by the column and an by old gentleman with a hat who is standing so still he almost serves the same purpose.

Gio has not seen her.

He has given up his seat and he's now half leaning against the wall, a small box in his hands, staring distractedly up at the electronic board, which is now showing the number 79 in bright yellow digits.

_I wonder if he'd call to me. Or if he'd pretend to not have seen me._

It's a childish thought, she knows. But now she's had it she can't shake it.

He wouldn't ignore her completely, would he? They are friends now. True, they are almost never alone lately. If they hang out there's Marti too, and Nico, and Ele and the others girls sometimes as well.

_But he wouldn't... would he?_

Impulsively, Eva drops her backpack to the floor. 

It makes a dull sound – sudden, unexpected. Enough to be heard over the chatter, hit a few feet, and get the attention of those standing close. Eva gasps and covers her mouth with one hand.

(It's probably a bit excessive, but she's no actress, is she?)

“Oh my God, I'm sorry,” she tells loudly to the old man with the hat, who seems to have hardly noticed what's just happened anyway. She turns to the mums who have stopped chatting among themselves to stare at her. “Sorry. My fault!” she repeats, raising a hand in apology, and leans down to retrieve her backpack.

As she makes to stand up again, she almost collides against someone's head.

“Eva!”

“ _Gio!_ ” She doesn't plan for it to come out this delighted. She blushes and clears her throat. “Gio,” she repeats, her tone more controlled. “What... what are you doing here?”

Gio smiles and straightens back up.

“Less damage than you, clearly.” He offers her a hand to help her up and she tries not to notice that it's very warm. “When did you get in? I didn't see you.”

“Just now. I didn't see you either,” Eva lies, but she shows him her ticket to back it up. “One hundred and five.”

Gio grimaces in sympathy.

“Ninety-seven.” He waves his own ticket and rolls his eyes. “Not that much better.” He eyes her backpack and checks the time on his phone. It's almost four. “You didn't get home yet?”

“No, I had lunch at the Baretto with Silvia and Fede,” she explains. “And then we... chatted there for a while.”

“Oh, cool.”

Eva is half expecting a remark about her grades being doomed if she keeps wasting her afternoons instead of studying. He used to make them all the time. But Gio says nothing and she's almost disappointed.

Which makes no sense, because she used to hate it when Gio got condescending.

“Yeah, but then I had to mail a few things, so...” Eva gestures vaguely as if to say 'here I am'. She tries not to cringe at her own awkwardness. “My mum will kill me if I tell her I didn't feel like queueing. Again.”

“What are you mailing?” Gio grins and lowers his voice to a near whisper. “If it's not a secret, of course.”

Eva smiles back. God, she's missed him. She sees him everyday in class, but she's missed him all the same.

“It _is_ a secret,” she says in the same tone. “Super secret thank-you cards for my aunt and grandma. Small gifts as well.”

“Are these the aunt and grandma from Bologna?”

“Yeah, them.” 

_The ones you never got to meet_ , Eva doesn't say. She doesn't miss the way Gio looks down quickly and his smile falls for a second. Maybe he thought the same.

Or maybe she's imagining things because as soon as their eyes meet again he's smiling like nothing happened.

And nothing did, technically.

“What are you thanking them for?” Gio asks.

“The Easter wishes and all the chocolate they sent?” Eva offers with a grimace.

“In May?”

“Well, the post is slow.”

Gio lets out a laugh, surprised, and she tries not to feel too proud of herself. She looks up to see they are calling number 89 and her heart starts beating stupidly fast.

She doesn't want this to end.

“What are _you_ mailing?” she asks quickly, mostly just to keep the conversation going. “If it's not a secret, of course.”

Gio smiles.

“No, it's not. It's just this guy I sold my guitar to who says-”

“What?!” Eva interrupts him, eyes open wide, voice shrill. A couple of people turn to stare but she can't bring herself to care. “You sold Cate?”

It's the name Eva gave to Gio's guitar.

Gio tried to teach her to play for a few weeks last year. She never learnt, didn't have the patience. And most lessons ended with them making out on Gio's bed anyway.

Eva called the guitar Caterina like Scoppini, their Latin and Greek professor. “She doesn't appreciate my efforts just like her,” Eva would say – and Gio would push her hair away from her face and kiss her lips and cheeks and neck and tell her that it didn't matter because he did.

Gio looks vaguely guilty now.

“Well, yeah. She- I mean, it was old and, like, I had bought it second-hand anyway. I sold it to this guy. But he told me I forgot to give him the strap, so...” Gio waves the small cardboard box he's holding with a forced smile. “I bought a new guitar, though. Last week.”

“Oh, right,” Eva says. She tries to sound composed and detached, like this is just another piece of information. Too bad it's too late to take back her initial reaction. “Marti did tell me something about that. Wednesday, right?”

Marti told her nothing. He was just exceptionally vague about why he couldn't hang out after school.

With hindsight, he was right. She'd rather not have known.

“Yes, Wednesday. Marti came too so he could offer his 'valuable opinion'.” Gio rolls his eyes. “He brought Nico, though, and _his_ opinion about music stuff I trust more. We went to this place Daniel suggested.”

“Daniel?” Eva repeats. She does a better job keeping her tone in check this time.

“Oh, he's... uh, Sofia's brother?” Gio offers, a bit too casually. “He's in a band. So he knows about... guitars and all that.”

“That's nice of him. To suggest the shop,” Eva says. She doesn't look at him, she can't.

She checks the time on her phone and then glances up at the board.

16:20. Number 93.

“Yes. Yes, very.” Gio runs a hand through his hair nervously. “It was a nice shop too, so... yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Eva takes a deep breath.

She wasn't planning on doing this now – or ever, really. Gio never brought it up. Eva asked Marti too and he said to just forget it.

She can't, though. The guilt keeps creeping up on her when she least expect it.

“Listen, about that time... at the party,” she begins. She chances a look at Gio and sees him furrowing his brow. “The party at Edoardo's place, I mean.”

“Oh,” Gio says. Just that.

It's not particularly encouraging, but she's started now and she has to go through with this.

“I just wanted to say sorry?” Eva blurts out in one breath. She's not sure why it comes out as a question, but it doesn't sound right. She tries again. “I... I wanted to say sorry... for the things I said to Sofia. I mean, I would say I was drunk, but that part is pretty obvious... I think. I was rude and unfair and- I'm just... I'm really sorry, Gio.”

She says it all looking down at her hands, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. Even after she's done speaking she can't find the courage to look up.

“Eva,” Gio calls. He's using that voice he used to do sometimes – the one that's quiet and kind and so so caring. She feels so undeserving. She can feel the tears threatening to spill, and she sniffles and nods to show him she's listening. “Eva, look at me.”

She does.

She looks up, their eyes meet, and he's _smiling_. Suddenly it doesn't even matter that there are people here. She lets out a sob, the tears start spilling, and she's so grateful when he wraps his arms around her and just holds her – the comfort so right and familiar it makes her sob even harder.

“Let's get out of here, yeah?” Gio murmurs as she cries and holds on to his shirt, as if for dear life.

Eva just nods. He throws an arm around her shoulder and she lets him lead her to the door. She notices that people are staring. The mums, the gym guys, even the old man with the hat. They both pretend not to see them.

Right as they are about to leave, they hear a loud ding: the digits on the board change and the number 97 appears.

Gio's number.

He throws a quick glance at it from over his shoulder. He shrugs and pushes the glass door open.

*

“Coffee and strawberry?” Gio pulls a face. “Since when is that a thing?”

Eva rolls her eyes and doesn't reply. She keeps eating her ice-cream and kicking softly at the bench leg with her heel. He chose stracciatella and chocolate – because he's boring like that, Eva thinks fondly, though she doesn't say.

She's afraid of what might come out if she starts speaking.

“Did your tongue freeze off?” Gio asks with a grin.

“Asshole.”

“Oh, so it _didn't_ freeze off. There go all my hopes and dreams.”

Eva pushes him jokingly on shoulder and he pretends to fall off the bench. They smile at each other.

“Sorry about before.” Eva sighs. “I'm not sure what happened. I was trying to say sorry and then...” She gestures at her face. “Sorry again. About the party too.”

Gio shrugs.

“It's okay.”

“Not really,” Eva argues. “I was mean. I know you stopped smoking for real. And even if you didn't, what I said to Sofia would still suck.”

“It wasn't ideal,” Gio concedes, and Eva snorts. “But you said sorry, you started crying, you said you were sorry about crying _and_ about what you said. At one point it's got to be enough.”

“Did I terrify her?” Eva asks quickly, looking down at her sandshoes. She doesn't really want to talk about Sofia, but she feels like she has to ask. “She seems so quiet.”

“She _is_ quiet, but that doesn't mean she's, like, a scared puppy,” Gio says decisively. “And you aren't _scary_ , come on.”

Eva raises both eyebrows at that.

“Okay, you're _a bit_ scary,” Gio amends. “But Sofia is fine, I promise.”

“Good,” Eva says. She tries, but it hardly sounds convincing. She lets out a deep sigh. “I _hate_ that you're not angry with me.”

Gio furrows his brow.

“Do you want me to be angry with you?”

“It's not that I want you to... But it'd be easier, you know? I fuck up, you get mad. You fuck up, I get mad. It makes sense, right? But you're never mad. I feel like... I don't know.” Eva shrugs. “Like I'm in the wrong always. And I know I _am_ this time, but-”

“Eva, no. Why would you- No,” Gio sighs and he looks down at his feet. He looks embarrassed. “The thing is, I...” He shakes his head to himself and seems to change his mind mid-sentence. “I was like that. For a while. I resented everything. You couldn't know because we were still avoiding each other. But... yeah, I get it.” He scoffs. “I'm hardly the Dalai Lama, you know.”

He's not lying, she knows. He's not telling the whole truth either. He can't seem to be able to look at her and that is not Gio at all.

But Eva gets it, he's moved on. There are things he can't say anymore.

Her stomach clenches at the thought and Eva sighs, but it helps that, no matter the circumstances, he's here.

She tries focusing on that. He's right next to her on the bench, they're having ice-cream together, he's _here_. Even if everything feels different now, it's still them.

No one is taking _that_ away from her.

Eva waits for Gio to look up and offers him a tiny smile.

“You didn't even get to mail your guitar strap to that guy,” she says, her tone a bit apologetic.

“And your family has been waiting for their stuff since Easter.” Gio smiles back and shrugs. “Doesn't matter, it's fine. We'll try again another time.”

They are just words, or maybe not.

Eva tries not to read too much into them as she bites into her cone. Gio laughs when a bit of strawberry ice-cream ends up on her nose and she licks it off.

It's almost summer and they're close again, Eva thinks, and she breathes out in relief.

Everything else can wait.

**Author's Note:**

> I care about these two a perfectly normal amount, if you're wondering.


End file.
